The present invention relates to patient support surfaces. In particular, it relates to an inflatable patient support surface that has rapid deflation capability to provide a hard surface when a patient requires cardio pulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
Inflatable support surfaces are commonly used to care for patients in hospitals or other medical environments. A support surface is a mattress made up of air (and/or foam) which is soft and which moves or changes shape with patient movement. An advantage provided by an inflatable support surface is that it provides a substantial amount of comfort for the patient and distributes pressure across wider areas of the patient's body than may be possible using rigid support surfaces.
Unfortunately, while inflatable support surfaces provide a number of benefits to the patient and the medical staff, during the course of its normal use, there are times when an inflatable support surface may have detrimental consequences for the patient.
One such situation arises when an individual is using an inflatable support surface for one type of treatment and is suddenly threatened by cardiac failure or other physical problems that may require the use of CPR. In the situation where CPR is required, the caregiver needs a firm surface for the patient to lie on to adequately perform the CPR procedure. By nature, a support surface is soft and easily deformable. If a patient resting on an inflatable support surface receives CPR, the soft nature of the support surface may prevent the caregiver from resuscitating the individual because pressure placed on the individual's chest will merely push the patient down into the soft support surface. As a result, inflatable support surfaces need to be rapidly deflated in case an emergency CPR needs to be performed on a patient. Excessive amounts of time taken to deflate an inflatable support surface may actually contribute to the death or permanent injury of an individual by delaying the use of CPR. Therefore, it is desirable to deflate the inflatable support surface as quickly as possible so the patient is, in effect, lying on the firm bed frame.
The invention solves this problem by allowing the caregiver to rapidly deflate the soft inflatable support surface such that the patient is supported by the rigid support structure under the inflatable support surface. The placement of the patient on the rigid support surface or bed frame allows the caregiver to effectively perform CPR. More important, by rapidly deflating the support surface, CPR can be administered as quickly as possible without the time delays associated with prior art deflation mechanisms and prior art inflatable support surfaces.
Many prior art support surfaces are deflated by simply releasing the hoses that are attached to the air source, and letting the air in the support surface leak out. In an emergency situation, this method usually takes too long as the whole support surface must deflate through a few small diameter hoses. The hoses are limited in diameter as they cannot be too bulky and therefore disturb the patient.
Other support surfaces use a pump to pull the air out. If the support surface uses a diaphragm type pump, deflation of the support surface will again be too slow. Alternatively, if the air pump is a centrifugal pump, it will have a higher volume of airflow and deflate more quickly than a diaphragm pump. If the electricity fails, however, neither pump will work. The described embodiments provide an air evacuation method that is quicker than prior art methods and does not rely on the availability of electrical power.